There’s Perfection Bored into Me as More Than Perfection
“All other loves are lost in only thine”
~ Alexander Pope translating Ovid writing in the voice of Sappho
The other loves are like one tiny spore
Of fungus less than seven microns wide,
Or subatomic particles much more
Like nothingness. Their paltry meanings slide
Beneath detection. Each was perfect in
Its way until the love you caused appeared,
Appeared since you, your face and hair, brought sin.
That sin exploded. Other loves were smeared
Like blood on slides for microscopes to be
Examined clinically by coolest eye
And brain. My soul and heart could not foresee
Your beauty. Love made its appearance, sly
Among the gospel words we sang in dusk,
Since then I felt you in me like a tusk.